Chapter 63 Awakening_1

They waited for about fifteen minutes before the lid of the hibernation pod automatically opened, revealing the water bag inside.

Luomi lay inside the fully sealed bag like a corpse, as if asleep.

Kupa peered closely through the semi-translucent frosted bag at the person inside, and after confirming it was Luomi, he nodded to Brand, who was standing by his side.

Kupa unzipped the bag and then helped Luomi, who was showing signs of revival but had not yet opened his eyes.

Suddenly, Luomi's body violently shook.

"Pfft~"

A stream of liquid spewed out from Luomi's mouth.

Having been soaked in nutrient fluid for many years, Luomi's internal cavities were filled with the liquid, and as his consciousness returned, so too did his breathing gradually recover, bringing with it the sensation of drowning.

Seeing him choking, Kupa immediately started patting his back, and Luomi coughed, the liquid from his mouth soon flowing out, after which he groggily opened his eyes.

"Luomi, are you alright? How do you feel?" Kupa asked, looking at Luomi as he slowly recovered.

Hearing the voice, Luomi turned to look at Kupa, who was supporting him, his eyes gradually focusing until Kupa's face appeared on his retina.

"Kupa, Brand," Luomi said excitedly, hugging Kupa.

The long period of isolation had made him extremely fragile, so upon seeing his long-lost colleagues, Kupa and Brand, Luomi broke down and cried.

"I thought you wouldn't come back," Luomi sobbed, his chin not yet fully under his control.

Kupa helped the weakened Luomi crawl out of the hibernation pod and supported him as he stood on the deck of the spaceship.

"Alright, it's all over," Kupa comforted him, patting his back.

At that moment, Brand also approached, and the three embraced tightly.

To Kupa and Brand, a few short hours had brought earth-shattering changes, and they too needed time to digest the fact that at least twenty-three years had passed.

For Luomi, although he had spent the first ten years believing that Kupa and Brand would return, from the tenth year onwards, he had begun to doubt whether they were still alive.

Luomi had spent thirteen years awake, trying to fill his life with work to avoid thinking about Kupa and Brand. But the solitude was unbearable, and when his research on Cagantuya hit a dead end, he chose to enter hibernation again. Although he did not set a time for awakening, at that moment, he still held out hope that they might come back.

He thought they might awaken him in person.

Cao Ge, sitting not far from them, silently watched the scene, not approaching to disturb them.

As some of the farthest-traveling humans in this world, they might not have been the most outstanding, but undeniably, they were the elite among Earth's contemporary human population.

They had brought hope to the civilization of this world and sacrificed their own lives for it; they were noble.

"Luomi, how have you aged so much? Why didn't you hibernate?"

Brand, holding Luomi's face and with tears in her eyes, looked at the white hairs on his chin.

"I've been in hibernation many times, but I've also been awake for a long time. So long, I thought you wouldn't come back. That's why I didn't set a time for this hibernation—I would either be awakened by you personally or sleep in the cosmos forever," Luomi said slowly, meeting Brand's gaze.

"Fortunately, I'm lucky."

Luomi was old now, fifty years old.

"It must have been hard for you at the time," Brand said.

Luomi knew that Brand was referring to the struggle he must have gone through when making his decision, but he didn't respond directly; instead, he looked past them at where Cao Ge was.

"Who is he?"

Hearing Luomi's question, Brand quickly wiped away her tears and, composing herself, introduced him, "This is Dr. Miller; you know, the planet we went to is the one he was on."

"You're Dr. Miller!"

At Brand's introduction, Luomi pushed the two apart and approached Cao Ge.

Looking at the down-to-earth black man before him, Cao Ge extended his hand with great respect, "Dr. Luomi, hello, I'm Miller."

"Hello, Dr. Miller, I'm glad to see you again."

Luomi had just woken up, still feeling weak, but seeing her senior, whom she had only seen in pictures on the wall, standing alive before her, she was quite excited.

Cao Ge nodded.

After meeting with Cao Ge, Luomi suddenly remembered something, looked around, and then asked Brand and Kupa with a confused expression, "Where's Doyle?"

As Luomi mentioned Doyle, the Space Station immediately fell into silence; no one spoke.

Kupa met Luomi's gaze, then glanced at Brand as if he wanted to say something but eventually remained silent.

He turned around dejectedly and walked down the corridor, heading towards the station's living quarters.

Luomi frowned, then turned her questioning eyes toward Brand.

Confronting Luomi's gaze, Brand couldn't hold back anymore and burst into tears.

"I'm sorry, it's my fault. Doyle was swept away by a giant wave trying to save me…"

Seeing this, Luomi stepped forward, embraced Brand, and comforted her, "Brand, it's not your fault."

"We were all prepared for this before we came out, weren't we?"

"But if I hadn't insisted on finding that damn beacon, Doyle might not have…"

Brand was still consumed by guilt.

"I'm also to blame, if I had arrived sooner, maybe Doyle wouldn't have died."

Cao Ge also spoke up at the right time.

The immense disparity brought on by the differing flow of time plunged Brand and the others into an emotional low.

In the following period, the three of them did nothing, just sitting silently inside the Space Station.

Cao Ge walked around the Space Station, looking around, familiarizing himself with the environment, and then waited for their recovery.

Emotional healing requires time.

Cao Ge's mission was to explore the true nature of the Tesseract inside Cagantuya, and to complete this task, he needed their help.

Cao Ge stood by the window, staring thoughtfully at the immense glowing celestial object in the distance.

This was the most beautiful celestial object Cao Ge had ever seen.

The body of the celestial object in the distance, now the size of a house, was in fact millions of times the volume of the sun.

It appeared only as big as a house because the distance between them was vast, so vast it was unimaginable. It seemed so close, as if one could reach out and touch it.

The reason for all this was that the star field nearby was sufficiently empty, with the exception of the stunning halo around that celestial body. Everywhere else was pitch black.

In the original drama, Kupa and his team approached Cagantuya to use its gravitational pull to accelerate their Space Shuttle towards another planet.

They did this because the fuel on the Space Station was insufficient, and the supplies could only support one person.

The reason for the scarcity of supplies on the Space Station inevitably brings us to another pioneer mentioned in the drama—Dr. Mann.

Because Dr. Mann had falsified the environmental data of Planet 12, he lured Kupa and his team there, then, fearing that his deception would be discovered, he sneaked away from the planet aboard the Space Shuttle, attempting to take control of the Space Station.

But fate had other plans—when the shuttle failed to dock with the Space Station, it caused severe damage, leading to the loss of several supply modules.

Hence, although Kupa and his team eventually regained control of the station, the fuel was no longer adequate to reach another planet, forcing them to utilize the gravitational slingshot effect of the black hole to accelerate.

Therefore, if Cao Ge wanted to visit Cagantuya, he must first visit the planet where Dr. Mann was.

Otherwise, given Kupa's character, he would never agree to approach Cagantuya again.

This meant Cao Ge needed to overlook Dr. Mann's destruction of the Space Station.

In the quiet Space Station, Kupa and the others lay in their beds resting while Cao Ge gazed at Cagantuya, lost in thought.

"I hope nothing goes wrong."